The Mortgaged Heart Page 15

  Sometimes they would talk about Sara. All the eighteen months that she was away she hardly ever wrote. And then the letter would just be about Aunt Esther and her music lessons and what they were going to have for dinner that night. He knew she was changed. And he had a feeling she was in trouble or something important was happening to her. But it got so that Sara was very vague to him—and it was terrible but when he tried to remember her face he couldn't see it clearly. She got to be almost like their dead mother to him.

  So it was Harry Minowitz and Vitalis who were nearest to him during that time. Vitalis and Harry. When he tried to think of them together he would have to laugh. It was like putting red with lavender—or a Bach fugue with a sad nigger whistling. Everything he knew seemed that way. Nothing fitted.

  Sara came back but that didn't change things much. They weren't close like they had been before. Their Dad had thought it was time for her to come home but she didn't seem glad to be back with her own family. And all the next year she would often get very quiet and just stare ahead like she was homesick. They didn't go with the same crowd of boys and girls anymore and often they didn't even wait for each other to walk to school in the mornings. Sara had learned a lot of music in Detroit and her piano playing was different and very careful. He could tell that she had loved their Aunt Esther a lot but for some reason she didn't talk about her much.

  The trouble was that he saw Sara in a hazy way at that time. That was the way everything looked to him then. Crazy and upsidedown. And he was getting to be a man and he did not know what was going to come. And always he was hungry and always he felt that something was just about to happen. And that happening he felt would be terrible and would destroy him. But he would not mold that prescience into thought. Even the time—the two long years after Sara returned—seemed to have passed through his body and not his mind. It was just long months of either floundering or quiet vacantness. And when he thought back over it there was little that he could realize.

  He was getting to be a man and he was seventeen years old.

  It was then that the thing happened that he had expected without knowing in his mind. This thing he had never imagined and afterward it seemed to have leapt up out of nowhere—to his mind it seemed that way but there was another part of him where this was not so.

  The time was late summer and in a few weeks he was planning to leave for Atlanta to enter Tech. He did not want to go to Tech—but it was cheap because he could take the co-op course and his Dad wanted him to graduate from there and be an engineer. There didn't seem to be anything else that he could do and in a way he was eager to leave home so that he could live in a new place by himself. That late summer afternoon he was walking in the woods behind Sherman's Quarter, thinking of this and of a hundred vague things. Remembering all the other times when he had walked through those woods made him restless and he felt lost and alone.

  It was almost sundown when he left the woods and started through the street where Vitalis lived. Although it was Sunday afternoon the houses were very quiet and everyone seemed to be gone. The air was sultry and there was the smell of sun-baked pine straw. On the edges of the little street were trampled weeds and a few early goldenrods. As he was walking past the houses, his ankles grey with the lazy swirls of dust that his footsteps made and his eyes tired from the sun, he suddenly heard Vitalis speak to him.

  "What you doing round this way, Andrew?"

  She was sitting on her front steps and seemed to be alone in the empty Quarter. "Nothing," he said. "Just wandering around."

  "They having a big funeral down at our church. It the preacher dead this time. Everybody done gone but me. I just now got away from your house. Even Sylvester done gone."

  He didn't know what to say but just the sight of her made him mumble, "Gosh I'm so hungry. All this walking around. And thirsty—"

  "I'll get you some."

  She got up slowly and he noticed for the first time that she was barefooted and her green shoes and stockings were on the porch. She stooped to put them on. "I done taken these off cause ever body done gone except a sick lady in one of them end houses. These here green shoes has always scrunched my toes—and sometimes the ground sure do feel good to my feets."

  On the little stoop behind the house he drank the cool water and dashed some of it into his burning face. Again he felt as though he were hearing that strange sound he had heard late at night along this street. When he went back through the house where Vitalis had been waiting for him he felt his body tremble. He did not know why they both paused a moment in the dim little room. It was very quiet and a clock ticked slowly. There was a kewpie doll with a gauze sash on the mantlepiece and the air was close and musty.

  "What ails you, Andrew? Why you shaking so? What is it ails you, Honey?"

  It wasn't him and it wasn't her. It was the thing in both of them. It was the strange sound he had heard there late at night. It was the dim room and the quietness. And all the afternoons he had spent with her in the kitchen. And all his hunger and the times when he had been alone. After it happened that was what he thought.

  Later she went out of the house with him and they stood by a pine tree on the edge of the woods. "Andrew, quit your looking at me like that," she kept saying. "Everthing is all right. Don't you worry none about that."

  It was like he was staring at her from the bottom of a well and that was all he could think.

  "That ain't nothing real wrong. It ain't the first time with me and you a grown man. Quit your looking at me like that, Andrew."

  This had never been in his mind. But it had been there waiting and had crept up and smothered his other thoughts—And this was not the only thing that would do him that way. Always. Always.

  "Us didn't mean nothing. Sylvester ain't ghy ever know—or your Daddy. Us haven't arranged this. Us haven't done no real sin."

  He had imagined how it would be when he was twenty. And she had a pale face like a flower and that was all he knew of her.

  "Peoples can't plan on everthing."

  He left her. Harry's chessmen, those precise and shrunken little dolls, neat problems in geometry, music that spun itself out immense and symmetrical. He was lost lost and it seemed to him that the end had surely come. He wanted to put his hands on all that had happened to him in his life, to grasp it to him and shape it whole. He was lost lost. He was alone and naked. And along with the chessmen and the music he suddenly remembered an aerial map of New York that he had seen—with the sharp skyscrapers and the blocks neatly plotted. He wanted to go far away and Atlanta was too near his home. He remembered the map of New York, frozen and delicate it was and he knew that was where he was going. That was all that he knew.

  In the restaurant of the town where he had gotten off of the bus Andrew Leander finished the last of his beers. The place was closing and there would not be a bus to Georgia until morning. He could not get Vitalis and Sara and Harry and his Dad from his mind. And there were others beside them. He realized suddenly that he had hardly remembered Chandler. Chandler West who lived across the street—whom he had been with so often and who was at the same time so obscure. And the girl who wore red fingernail polish at high school. And the little rat of a boy named Peeper whom he had once talked with at South Highlands.

  He got up from the table and picked up his bags. He was the last one in the restaurant and the waiter was ready to lock up. For a moment he hung around near the door that opened into the dark quiet street.

  When he had first sat down at the table everything had seemed for the first time so clear. And now he was more lost than ever. But somehow it didn't matter. He felt strong. In that dark sleepy place he was a stranger—but after three years he was going home. Not just to Georgia but to a nearer home than that. He was drunk and there was power in him to shape things. He thought of all of them at home whom he had loved. And it would not be himself but through all of them that he would find this pattern. He felt drunk and sick for home. He wanted to go out and lift up his voice and se
arch in the night for all that he wanted. He was drunk drunk. He was Andrew Leander.

  "Say," he said to the boy who was waiting to lock the door. "Can you give me the name of some place around here where I can get a room for the night?"

  The boy gave him some directions and in the surface of his mind he noted them. The street was dark and silent and he stood a moment longer in the open doorway. "Say," he said again. "I got off the bus half drunk. Will you tell me the name of this place?"

  AUTHOR'S OUTLINE OF "THE MUTE" (later published as The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter)

  General Remarks

  THE BROAD PRINCIPAL THEME of this book is indicated in the first dozen pages. This is the theme of man's revolt against his own inner isolation and his urge to express himself as fully as is possible. Surrounding this general idea there are several counter themes and some of these may be stated briefly as follows: (i) There is a deep need in man to express himself by creating some unifying principle or God. A personal God created by a man is a reflection of himself and in substance this God is most often inferior to his creator. (2 ) In a disorganized society these individual Gods or principles are likely to be chimerical and fantastic. (3) Each man must express himself in his own way—but this is often denied to him by a wasteful, short-sighted society. (4) Human beings are innately cooperative, but an unnatural social tradition makes them behave in ways that are not in accord with their deepest nature. (5) Some men are heroes by nature in that they will give all that is in them without regard to the effort or to the personal returns.

  Of course these themes are never stated nakedly in the book. Their overtones are felt through the characters and situations. Much will depend upon the insight of the reader and the care with which the book is read. In some parts the underlying ideas will be concealed far down below the surface of a scene and at other times these ideas will be shown with a certain emphasis. In the last few pages the various motifs which have been recurring from time to time throughout the book are drawn sharply together and the work ends with a sense of cohesive finality.

  The general outline of this work can be expressed very simply. It is the story of five isolated, lonely people in their search for expression and spiritual integration with something greater than themselves. One of these five persons is a deaf mute, John Singer—and it is around him that the whole book pivots. Because of their loneliness these other four people see in the mute a certain mystic superiority and he becomes in a sense their ideal. Because of Singer's infirmity his outward character is vague and unlimited. His friends are able to impute to him all the qualities which they would wish for him to have. Each one of these four people creates his understanding of the mute from his own desires. Singer can read lips and understand what is said to him. In his eternal silence there is something compelling. Each one of these persons makes the mute the repository for his most personal feelings and ideas.

  This situation between the four people and the mute has an almost exact parallel in the relation between Singer and his deaf-mute friend, Antonapoulos Singer is the only person who could attribute to Antonapoulos dignity and a certain wisdom. Singer's love for Antonapoulos threads through the whole book from the first page until the very end. No part of Singer is left untouched by this love and when they are separated his life is meaningless and he is only marking time until he can be with his friend again. Yet the four people who count themselves as Singet's friends know nothing about Antonapoulos at all until the book is nearly ended. The irony of this situation grows slowly and steadily more apparent as the story progresses.

  When Antonapoulos dies finally of Bright's disease Singer, overwhelmed by loneliness and despondency, turns on the gas and kills himself. Only then do these other four characters begin to understand the real Singer at all.

  About this central idea there is much of the quality and tone of a legend. All the parts dealing directly with Singer are written in the simple style of a parable.

  Before the reasons why this situation came about can be fully understood it is necessary to know each of the principal characters in some detail. But the characters cannot be described adequately without the events which happen to them being involved. Nearly all of the happenings in the book spring directly from the characters. During the space of this book each person is shown in his strongest and most typical actions.

  Of course it must be understood that none of these personal characteristics are told in the didactic manner in which they are set down here. They are implied in one successive scene after another—and it is only at the end, when the sum of these implications is considered, that the real characters are understood in all of their deeper aspects.

  Characters and Events

  JOHN SINGER

  Of all the main characters in the book Singer is the simplest. Because of his deaf-mutism he is isolated from the ordinary human emotions of other people to a psychopathic degree. He is very observant and intuitive. On the surface he is a model of kindness and cooperativeness—but nothing which goes on around him disturbs his inner self. All of his deeper emotions are involved in the only friend to whom he can express himself, Antonapoulos. In the second chapter Biff Brannon thinks of Singer's eyes as being "cold and gentle as a cat's." It is this same remoteness that gives him an air of wisdom and superiority.

  Singer is the first character in the book only in the sense that he is the symbol of isolation and thwarted expression and because the story pivots about him. In reality each one of his satellites is of far more importance than himself. The book will take all of its body and strength in the development of the four people who revolve about the mute.

  The parts concerning Singer are never treated in a subjective manner. The style is oblique. This is partly because the mute, although he is educated, does not think in words but in visual impressions. That, of course, is a natural outcome of his deafness. Except when he is understood through the eyes of other people the style is for the main part simple and declarative. No attempt will be made to enter intimately into his subconscious. He is a flat character in the sense that from the second chapter on through the rest of the book his essential self does not change.

  At his death there is a strange little note from the cousin of Antonapoulos found in his pocket:

  DEAR MR. SINGER,

  No address on corner of letters. They all sent back to me. Spiros Antonapoulos died and was buried with his kidneys last month. Sorry to tell same but no use writing letters to the dead.

  Yours truly,

  CHARLES PARKER

  When the man is considered in his deepest nature (because of his inner character and peculiar situation) his suicide at the death of Antonapoulos is a necessity.

  MICK KELLY

  Mick is perhaps the most outstanding character in the book. Because of her age and her temperament her relation with the mute is more accentuated than any other person's. At the beginning of the second part of the work she steps out boldly—and from then on, up until the last section, she commands more space and interest than anyone else. Her story is that of the violent struggle of a gifted child to get what she needs from an unyielding environment. When Mick first appears she is at the age of thirteen, and when the book ends she is fourteen months older. Many things of great importance happen to her during this time. At the beginning she is a crude child on the threshold of a period of quick awakening and development. Her energy and the possibilities before her are without limits. She begins to go forward boldly in the face of all obstacles before her and during the next few months there is great development. In the end, after the finances of her family have completely given way, she has to get a job working ten hours a day in a ten-cent store. Her tragedy does not come in any way from herself—she is robbed of her freedom and energy by an unprincipled and wasteful society.

  To Mick music is the symbol of beauty and freedom. She has had no musical background at all and her chances for educating herself are very small. Her family does not have a radio and in the summer she roams aroun
d the streets of the town pulling her two baby brothers in a wagon and listening to any music she can hear from other people's houses. She begins reading at the public library and from books she learns some of the things she needs to know. In the fall when she enters the Vocational High School she arranges to have rudimentary lessons on the piano with a girl in her class. In exchange for the lessons she does all the girl's homework in algebra and arithmetic and gives her also fifteen cents a week from her lunch money. During the afternoon Mick can sometimes practice on the piano in the gymnasium—but the place is always noisy and overcrowded and she never knows when she will be interrupted suddenly by a blow on the head from a basketball.

  Her love for music is instinctive, and her taste is naturally never pure at this stage. At first there is Mozart. After that she learns about Beethoven. From then on she goes hungrily from one composer to another whenever she gets a chance to hear them on other people's radios—Bach, Brahms, Wagner, Sibelius, etc. Her information is often very garbled but always the feeling is there. Mick's love for music is intensely creative. She is always making up little tunes for herself—and she plans to compose great symphonies and operas. Her plans are always definite in a certain way. She will conduct all of her music herself and her initials will always be written in big red letters on the curtains of the stage. She will conduct her music either in a red satin evening dress or else she will wear a real man's evening suit. Mick is thoroughly egoistic—and the crudely childish side of her nature comes in side by side with the mature.

  Mick must always have some person to love and admire. Her childhood was a series of passionate, reasonless admirations for a motley cavalcade of persons, one after another. And now she centers this undirected love on Singer. He gives her a book about Beethoven on her birthday and his room is always quiet and comfortable. In her imagination she makes the mute just the sort of teacher and friend that she needs. He is the only person who seems to show any interest in her at all. She confides in the mute—and when an important crisis occurs at the end of the book it is to him that she wants to turn for help.